{"id":2779,"date":"2014-10-23T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2014-10-23T12:34:01","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T12:34:01","slug":"small-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/small-ball\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Ball?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s World Series time. A time when leadership discussions take place inning to inning let alone game to game. Kansas City Royals. San Francisco Giants. Baseball is much harder than it looks. Getting to the World Series is even tougher.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeadership\u201d has never been something that came easily to me, so I decided to become a student of it. I began to devour books and attend conferences that would help me grow in understanding and capacity. However, most of those pages and much of that time felt like it was not being wisely used \u2013 something wasn\u2019t sitting right within me.<\/p>\n

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All I heard about was strategies, qualities, duties, models and techniques. It felt like trying to step up to homeplate and imitating the pre-swing routine, the stance and the swing of a great hitter (insert your favourite here<\/strong>). Doing the \u201cright\u201d things, implementing the \u201clatest\u201d strategies, just didn\u2019t sit well though the temptation to give in to them from peers and parishoners were strong at times. Just swing for the fences; find the right program.<\/p>\n

One of the key contributions of Mandred Kets De Vries\u2019 book, The Leadership Mystique: Leading Behavior in the Human Enterprise<\/em>, is its focus on developing the interior life of those who are in leadership positions. The lasting inference from this reading is that, leadership requires the capacity to examine yourself in order to effectively elevate the people (and organization) around you. Through very practical surveys and comprehensive data, Kets De Vries, provides a wealth of resources to equip anyone who serves in leadership. However, from the outset he is clear that the solution is not as much in strategic structural changes as it is on the interpersonal relationship among those within the organization: \u201cMy main objective in studying leadership is to bring the person back into the organization\u2026<\/em>Far too many organizational specialists give structures and systems precedence over people.\u201d (p.xix)<\/p>\n

When it comes to churches, programs and ministries are important to the life of any congregation. However, too often we treat the programs of our churches as though they were eternal and the people as expendable. It is the lives and welfare of people that are of eternal worth. In a strategy-driven culture that seems to continuously demand facts and figures that communicate relevance and success, we can easily lose sight of the importance of people.<\/p>\n

Compound those internal organizational issues with the fact that as a culture\u00a0we regularly default to information in small, rapid fire, doses through digital media; which comes with a promise of making our inter-personal relationships more efficient.\u00a0Yet there is a growing disconnect in the manner in which many people relate to each other. It seems as though there is almost an inverse relationship between the increase digital connectivity of our relationships and our sense of truly belonging with a purposeful group of people.<\/p>\n

Maybe now is the time to remember, people are still people, and not products, who ultimately need to be redeemed and restored in relationship to each other and to God, Our Creator.<\/p>\n

The question that comes to my mind is simply this: if the pursuit of knowledge and the increased access to information is leaving us wanting in our social relationships perhaps there is a new yearning: to be known? The road we have travelled in our Canadian context seems to underscore the importance of a renewed emphasis on the inner life of those who serve in leadership. A continual focus on interior development will be necessary to be prepared to engage the rapidly changing culture in the Canadian context. The Good News is not new news, which is in fact Great news: The fields of our Canadian cities are ready for harvest; the culture is ready for intentionally addressing the needs of a people who are looking to be known.<\/p>\n

The question of how is a larger more complex issue (which won\u2019t be explored right now, but your input is welcomed). Kets De Vries offers some insight into a key element in the change process when he states: \u201cEffective CEO\u2019s also have to become \u201cchief storytelling officers,\u201d inspiring people through their stories and rallying them behind their vision.\u201d (p.55)<\/p>\n

In leadership, therefore, we ought to have a greater awareness of the unseen inner workings of the people we engage, recognizing their desire not simply for answers but for identity.<\/p>\n

It is undeniable that there are both visible obstacles (socio-economic diversity) and unseen obstacles (pluralism) that have presented themselves in our communities. These obstacles provide new opportunities for churches and their leaders to engage their communities in a manner that reflects the Incarnational model of Jesus. As this book clearly underscores, active listening (as discussed in last weeks blog) and prioritizing people should be of prime importance for leadership. My contention would be that those qualities should flow from God\u2019s Grace and according to His Truth to first, inform the lives of those who serve in leadership and secondly, affect their outworking among the people with whom they serve.<\/p>\n

The change, however, should be gradual. In the big leagues they call it \u201csmall ball\u201d, Kansas City Royal style: work the count, bunt, steal bases, hit and run, defensive speed and strong middle relievers. It\u2019s still baseball, maybe not as dramatic, but certainly exciting. Kets De Vries says it this way:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhen developing the outlines of a change process, the change leaders need to reframe the cultural guidelines that people in the organization have become used to, simultaneously reframing positive aspects of the change effort. They need to create pride in the organization\u2019s history and point out how this pride in tradition can anchor the organization as it moves into the future. By referring to the organization\u2019s past accomplishments while at the same time presenting a new way of doing things, leaders create a sense of hope \u2013 a dual approach that garners support for a new beginning.\u201d (p.150)<\/p>\n

\u00a0For those in ministry leadership in particular, the lasting reward is in the investment of people, which requires a constant willingness to self-examine and a purposeful commitment to appreciate the past, point to the possibilities and tell the God stories along the way.<\/p>\n

Who you got: Royals or Giants?<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s World Series time. A time when leadership discussions take place inning to inning let alone game to game. Kansas City Royals. San Francisco Giants. Baseball is much harder than it looks. Getting to the World Series is even tougher. \u201cLeadership\u201d has never been something that came easily to me, so I decided to become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ketsdevries","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2783,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}